Chuck Cook Photography

In front, The Northern Indian bowl from the Bare Bowls truck. In back, The Mexican bowl.

​On a gorgeous, unseasonably warm Thursday in January, the new Bare Bowls truck made its debut in back of The Menil Collection building. Despite the fact that it was its first day out, it didn't lack for customers. A crowd that averaged five people persisted during our visit.

Bare Bowls is the latest effort from the same people who run Pure Catering. You might notice the logos and business names are similar. You see, the bowls aren't bare; the food is. The emphasis is on clean, healthy ingredients, sourced locally when possible. You may have seen Chef James doing demos at the Urban Harvest Farmers' Market, along with his partner Carrington.

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​My grocery store of choice is H-E-B, and my go-to store since moving to Houston has been the Buffalo Speedway location -- a little out of the way, considering my Museum District home base, but makes sense when you factor in my Saturday-morning shopping trifecta: Urban Harvest Farmers' Market, H-E-B Buffalo Speedway, Spec's on Bissonnet. (I love downtown Spec's but Head Wine Genius Patrick at the Bissonnet location is a minor god, in my book.)

Anyway. I have been anxiously awaiting My Very Own H-E-B, and a few visits have convinced me that it is quite an excellent option. Like our own Katharine Shilcutt, I have a few reservations (they don't stock enough escarole, the booze isn't on sale yet), but the main attraction for me is the a la carte sushi bar that is snuggled in between the meat and produce sections.

In addition to the usual selection of pre-rolled and -wrapped trays of sushi, sashimi, dumplings and salads, the Montrose H-E-B offers shoppers the option of assembling their own trays from a huge case of individually wrapped hand rolls and sashimi. They're priced by the piece (average $1.50-$2 each), and you simply grab a tray (small or large), make your selections, hand it over for a chef to add pickled ginger and wasabi, total the price, and you're on your way out the door with a customized sushi lunchbox.

Don't forget to pay, of course.

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Photo by Christina Uticone

​I have confessed my lack of kitchen skills to you guys on several occasions, but my one true kitchen talent is baking. I love to bake breads and muffins and cookies, and with the arrival of the holiday season I have already been hard at work testing new recipes. So my baking antennae went up when I read about an upcoming book launch and cooking class at Central Market. Join authors Kimberly Reiner and Jenna Sanz-Agero on December 5 at 6:30 p.m. as they teach a class based on their new cookbook, Sugar, Sugar: Every Recipe Has A Story.

The cookbook focuses on classic American recipes and the stories behind them: travel the country through Buffalo Chip Cookies, Cape Cod Blueberry Pie, Kentucky Jam Cake and Railroad Track Cookies. If you thought cookbooks were boring, you haven't read this one--I spent the weekend turning pages and giggling at the recipes' "secret ingredients" (halo, fancy holiday dress, Doppler radar). The authors have a fun sense of humor, and each recipe is illuminated with a rich backstory about its origins.

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Click to embiggen

​Houston just welcomed two new farmers markets to town: one at HCC Southwest's campus and one at Sugar Land's Town Square. And although our individual markets might not [yet] be as large as the ones in Seattle or San Francisco, we can still boast that there's a farmers market for nearly every nook and cranny in the greater Houston metropolitan area.

But although we have a great selection of farmers markets, there's not been a comprehensive map -- until now. Visit our map of Greater Houston Farmers Markets to see the closest market to you, its hours and days of operation and its typical offerings. You can even click on the name of the market to be taken directly to its website.

With cooler weather prevailing and holiday shopping to do, there's no better time to visit your local farmers market than this fall. Get out there and get fresh.

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Pedagogical Pasta?

​In the past few months, I've started to pay more attention to children's food. That is to say, food products designed for and targeted toward the younger set (and their caregivers). Maybe it's because my friends are having kids, maybe it's because I'm pushing 30, or maybe it's because I'm attracted to bright colors and simplistic slogans ("They're GRRREAT!!!").

What has really struck me during my recent strolls through the supermarket is the number of foods shaped like letters of the alphabet. Granted, SpongeBob and Woody from Toy Story are also trendy choices for formed food, but letter shapes seem to endure. My mom ate alphabet soup as a child, served it to me when I was elementary school, and I'll probably dish it out to my young'uns, should have I them.

But here's my question: What's the point?

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Photo by John Suh

The inside look

​Revival Market gets a lot of hype for their cafe, but they first and foremost claim to be the "neighborhood butcher, grocer, and charcutier." Every time I visit, I have not been able to drift past the market side, always spellbound by the small bounty of oddly shaped produce and, of course, the spread behind the glass: pork, venison, rabbit, duck, quail--some raw, some cured, others smoked or made into pâté.

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Urban Harvest

Tomato Fest

​To me, tomatoes are one of summer's quintessential foods. I think of a crisp salad with juicy, ripe tomatoes or fresh sliced tomatoes with just a sprinkle of sea salt. There is so much to do with this versatile fruit and, of course, the best tomatoes can be found at your local farmers' market.

Urban Harvest is once again celebrating the peak Texas tomato season with the annual Tomato Fest. This year the celebration is extended to all three of their farmers' markets, with events running through next week.

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​After a handful of trips to Ryan Pera and Morgan Weber's still brand-new Revival Market, I've yet to be completely blown away. Don't get me wrong, I think the place is fantastic on a number of levels. I've picked up wonderful cheeses and bread, fantastically orange-yolked eggs, and an array of amazing house-made pantry products. I'm particularly enamored of their deeply flavored yet strikingly subtle barrel-aged soy sauce. Then, of course, there's Morgan's meat, reason enough for the place's existence, and well worth excitement in its own right.

I'm sure I had unreasonable expectations going in. When I heard that Pera and Weber were expanding the offerings of the shop to include a veritable one-stop for local ingredients, I envisioned just that. I wanted a place I could go, grocery list in hand, and fill my pantry and my fridge according to my whims, rather than the realities of sourcing from local growers and purveyors. I wanted the best of both worlds; convenience and immediacy, married to quality and the warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from buying local. In other words, I wanted the holy grail of farmers' markets.

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Photos by Katharine Shilcutt

Ryan Pera (L) and Morgan Weber (R) relax for a brief moment in their new shop.

​"This thing was a wreck last night," laughed Morgan Weber as he gestured toward the now-spotless interior of Revival Market this morning. The long-awaited butcher shop / grocery store / coffee bar is scheduled to open this Monday, March 21, at 6:30 a.m.

Weber is one of the partners in the store along with Ryan Pera, former chef at The Grove and one of Houston's leading charcutiers.

The two men seemed giddy with relief as they showed off the store's gleaming white subway tiles behind a long butcher counter, its wooden boxes that will soon stock local produce and the city's first dry curing room. Four hams hung inside it, a row of spindly soppressatas and salamis dangling like dark red icicles beneath them.

"I just hope people get it," Weber said. Because although a local foods-lover might swoon over the store's vast selection of Texas products and produce, the casual grocery shopper might do a double-take at being unable to find, say, Imperial sugar or a loaf of Wonderbread.

That's not Revival Market's game.

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littlegemtrees

​Between now and January 25, it's Central Market's annual Citrus Fest. The place is teeming with all manner of zesty treats, including imported sparkling lemonades, marinated fish filets, and lemony baked goods. Being a purist, I was most excited by the huge display of gorgeous fresh citrus fruits like Mandarins, sweet limes, and discounted Meyer lemons all tumbled together and looking bright and cheery. I selected a big bag of assorted fruits and took them home to do some experimentation.

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